"Almost a third of this year's high school graduates who took the ACT tests are not prepared for college-level writing, biology, algebra or social science classes, according to data the testing company released Wednesday."

Sounds about right, not everyone needs to be a rocket scientist, the world needs ditch diggers too.

I wonder how many thousands of classroom hours could be reclaimed if we reintroduced the concept of "holding back" students who had failed to make adequate academic progress in a given year and require them to repeat the material until they had achieved sufficient mastery.

What's really scary is that their definition of "prepared" is from 18 to 23 points out of 36 (depending on section), and the two-third who were supposedly college-ready were the ones who passed only one out of four of those sections; only a quarter of the test-takers managed to accomplish that (very low) goal in all four sections.

Let that sink in:

Three-quarters of students taking the ACT failed at least one of the four sections.

Three quarters.

Three-quarters of the students taking a college admissions test weren't "college ready" in at least one of the four categories they were tested on.

Fjornir:I wonder how many thousands of classroom hours could be reclaimed if we reintroduced the concept of "holding back" students who had failed to make adequate academic progress in a given year and require them to repeat the material until they had achieved sufficient mastery.

The problem with that is that you end up with 16 year olds in 7th grade, which ends up just being disrupting for the students on the proper track.

Being able to place students with subpar performance or performance, or with chronic behavior problems into alternative schools and removing them from holding the rest of the students back would help.

Bringing accountability to the parents, along with education and financial resources for underprivileged families, so that more students had support and motivation at home towards educational achievement would help even more.

Of course, that all costs money, and apparently tax breaks for multimillionaires and megacorporations are more important. We wouldn't want the execs at JPMorgan or Exxon to have to buy their suits off the rack or reduce their Thai hooker and civet coffee enema budgets would we?

In terms of careers, the report found a chasm between what students want to study and where they might find jobs down the road. ACT compared federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projections with their own questionnaires and found insufficient student interest in the five fastest-growing industries with workers who require some college.

"When informed by researchers, students were astonished to find that 75% of jobs in the United States were not devoted to theater arts, philosophy, history, and recreational frisbee golf."

TuteTibiImperes:Being able to place students with subpar performance or performance, or with chronic behavior problems into alternative schools and removing them from holding the rest of the students back would help.

those schools with nothing but poor performers would never get any funding.

I disagree. Not every college degree has a clearly defined career path, and some may be poor investments, especially if you have to take out loans to pay for them, but the extra time spent learning to think, learning to be responsible for your own education and motivation, and learning to be an independent adult is invaluable.

Having a degree proves that you're capable of working within a system, accepting responsibility, and taking initiative for your own success. The lack of a degree doesn't mean that you're incapable of those things, but the data available suggests that overall those with degrees have lower unemployment rates and higher salaries than those without.

TuteTibiImperes:Fjornir: I wonder how many thousands of classroom hours could be reclaimed if we reintroduced the concept of "holding back" students who had failed to make adequate academic progress in a given year and require them to repeat the material until they had achieved sufficient mastery.

The problem with that is that you end up with 16 year olds in 7th grade, which ends up just being disrupting for the students on the proper track.

Being able to place students with subpar performance or performance, or with chronic behavior problems into alternative schools and removing them from holding the rest of the students back would help.

Bringing accountability to the parents, along with education and financial resources for underprivileged families, so that more students had support and motivation at home towards educational achievement would help even more.

Of course, that all costs money, and apparently tax breaks for multimillionaires and megacorporations are more important. We wouldn't want the execs at JPMorgan or Exxon to have to buy their suits off the rack or reduce their Thai hooker and civet coffee enema budgets would we?

Brilliant!

We'll seperate the good students from the poor students in seperate, but equal, facilities. That's such a good idea!

/ personally; I think we should allow 14 year old kids to drop out of high school. Thereby removing them from a classroom they obviously don't want to be and allowing us to concentrate resources on kids that do want to be there.

// incidentally; I also think anyone who is foolish enough to drop out of high school and not get their GED shouldn't get any welfare money.

Most of the people I knew in college were not ready for college. Most of the people I know now, who finished college at least a decade or two ago and moved onto Masters degrees and Juris Doctorates, still aren't ready for college.

iheartscotch:TuteTibiImperes: Fjornir: I wonder how many thousands of classroom hours could be reclaimed if we reintroduced the concept of "holding back" students who had failed to make adequate academic progress in a given year and require them to repeat the material until they had achieved sufficient mastery.

The problem with that is that you end up with 16 year olds in 7th grade, which ends up just being disrupting for the students on the proper track.

Being able to place students with subpar performance or performance, or with chronic behavior problems into alternative schools and removing them from holding the rest of the students back would help.

Bringing accountability to the parents, along with education and financial resources for underprivileged families, so that more students had support and motivation at home towards educational achievement would help even more.

Of course, that all costs money, and apparently tax breaks for multimillionaires and megacorporations are more important. We wouldn't want the execs at JPMorgan or Exxon to have to buy their suits off the rack or reduce their Thai hooker and civet coffee enema budgets would we?

Brilliant!

We'll seperate the good students from the poor students in seperate, but equal, facilities. That's such a good idea!

/ personally; I think we should allow 14 year old kids to drop out of high school. Thereby removing them from a classroom they obviously don't want to be and allowing us to concentrate resources on kids that do want to be there.

// incidentally; I also think anyone who is foolish enough to drop out of high school and not get their GED shouldn't get any welfare money.

Maybe I overgeneralized. A student who's trying, but just not getting it, should be given every opportunity and resource available to succeed. Students who don't even bother to show up, put forth no effort, or who spend their days disrupting the educational experience of their peers need to be separated out.

It's a tough call to decide where to draw the line between the fault of the student and the fault of the parent/home-environment. It's likely a sliding scale, for younger students more of it is probably a result of the home environment, but older students need to take more responsibility upon themselves.

In a perfect world we'd address education reform with genuine efforts to fix our wealth inequality and generational poverty issues. Students with parents who never succeeded academically are far less likely to achieve themselves. If their parents and neighbors don't place a value on it, they won't place a value on it, especially because certain ethnic cultures almost vilify educational achievement. Plus, there's a strong correlation between educational failure in adults and single parent households. It's difficult to ask a single mom who works two minimum wage jobs and may not even have a high school diploma herself to be able to help and encourage her kids' educations the same way a two parent household where both parents have college degrees and white collar jobs can.

At a certain point though we need to ask ourselves how much pity we're willing to have if making extra concessions means that the educational achievement of those students without those hardships will be held back.

We need to stop with the "the only way you'll succeed in life is it you go to college" crap that people have been preaching for at least the last 10 years.

There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

One other problem is not holding teachers to a higher standard in college, some of the least intelligent, least college ready people I met in college, were education majors. (They were also the ones doing it for the wrong reasons of every weekend, holiday, summer off, and high pay (yes parts of Ohio pay their teachers way more than they should.))

HotWingAgenda:Most of the people I knew in college were not ready for college. Most of the people I know now, who finished college at least a decade or two ago and moved onto Masters degrees and Juris Doctorates, still aren't ready for college.

When I was in high school, about to head for college, about 10% of all grads were even planning on going to college. That was in 1980. Now, if you figure that another 20% were likely as prepared as I was, but not intending to go, that leaves another two-thirds who were both unprepared and had no plans at all to even try to go to college....just like today.

Which means that after 35 years of insisting that "all kids can go to college," college prep, AP classes, No Child Left Behind, and assorted other well-intentioned efforts to make every single child in America college ready....we've achieved exactly nothing. One-third of students are college material, and two-thirds are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in post-secondary education.

And that should be just fine with everyone. But for some reason, it isn't.

Honestly, I think "college ready" is a useless term. And it's an asinine expectation as well. What do they understand, and what can they do?

If we educated based on these questions, we might get somewhere. Especially if we tied stuff like math to subjects where it is used. And for everyone, the "what can they do?" part would be helpful - let's actually train people in skills as though they would have to live off of them.

Look - we already addressed this a few years back. When too many don't meet the "standard", lower the standard and print more participation ribbons. (ACT ain't scored the way it used to be, and trust me, they didn't raise the bar).

Gyrfalcon:HotWingAgenda: Most of the people I knew in college were not ready for college. Most of the people I know now, who finished college at least a decade or two ago and moved onto Masters degrees and Juris Doctorates, still aren't ready for college.

When I was in high school, about to head for college, about 10% of all grads were even planning on going to college. That was in 1980. Now, if you figure that another 20% were likely as prepared as I was, but not intending to go, that leaves another two-thirds who were both unprepared and had no plans at all to even try to go to college....just like today.

Which means that after 35 years of insisting that "all kids can go to college," college prep, AP classes, No Child Left Behind, and assorted other well-intentioned efforts to make every single child in America college ready....we've achieved exactly nothing. One-third of students are college material, and two-thirds are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in post-secondary education.

And that should be just fine with everyone. But for some reason, it isn't.

Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

TuteTibiImperes:Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

School Districts have immense pressure from parents/society to graduate students. Many districts are currently looking that the "unfairness" of the Zero. Going to a system where the lowest grade you can receive is a 50%. Practically making graduating/passing near impossible to not do.

shtychkn:TuteTibiImperes: Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

School Districts have immense pressure from parents/society to graduate students. Many districts are currently looking that the "unfairness" of the Zero. Going to a system where the lowest grade you can receive is a 50%. Practically making graduating/passing near impossible to not do.

Part of that is also NCLB, which is also part of why a bachelor's degree is now considered the standard level of education for employment whereas a high school diploma used to be - the HS diploma has just been watered down to such a degree that in many cases it doesn't mean much on its own.

TuteTibiImperes:Gyrfalcon: HotWingAgenda: Most of the people I knew in college were not ready for college. Most of the people I know now, who finished college at least a decade or two ago and moved onto Masters degrees and Juris Doctorates, still aren't ready for college.

When I was in high school, about to head for college, about 10% of all grads were even planning on going to college. That was in 1980. Now, if you figure that another 20% were likely as prepared as I was, but not intending to go, that leaves another two-thirds who were both unprepared and had no plans at all to even try to go to college....just like today.

Which means that after 35 years of insisting that "all kids can go to college," college prep, AP classes, No Child Left Behind, and assorted other well-intentioned efforts to make every single child in America college ready....we've achieved exactly nothing. One-third of students are college material, and two-thirds are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in post-secondary education.

And that should be just fine with everyone. But for some reason, it isn't.

Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

Capable: You should be able to read and comprehend a complex paragraph, summarize what you've read, and write a coherent sentence about what they've read. You should be able to do basic math and simple algebra. You should have a basic grasp of biology and US history and civics. And really, that's about it. Anything MORE than that is what you go to college FOR. To get a more in-depth knowledge of the basic stuff you learned in high school.

All the other crap they have kids doing in high school clutters up their brains with useless crap, and really just confuses them more, I think. There is no conceivable reason why, for instance, 8th grade algebra must get kids from adding fractions to quadratic equations in half a year; but that's what they're doing....and nobody, but nobody, no matter how smart, can possibly manage to get even a minimal comprehension of mathematics with that kind of intensive cramming. The ones who do are the math geniuses. And the same thing happens in history, science, English, whatever. There's no time to examine anything or ask questions, because so much has to be gone over by the time the standardized tests come around.

So if a third of kids are not ready for college (ready=capable) it's just as much because they got lost back at adding 2/3 and 4/5 while the teacher was swooping them on to 2(x+3) - 4(y-7), which they might have comprehended if they had had another month to figure things out. And some, like my third nephew, are quite capable and are simply NOT INTERESTED in college; they don't want to go, they have no desire to go, and schools are no longer equipped to handle kids who are absolutely uninterested in ever attending college. There are no vocational classes any more, so kids with zero desire to attend college lose out because there's nobody to guide them into alternate career tracks. No! You have to want to go to college! "But I want to do something else." That's for losers!

lar_m:Look - we already addressed this a few years back. When too many don't meet the "standard", lower the standard and print more participation ribbons. (ACT ain't scored the way it used to be, and trust me, they didn't raise the bar).

never had to take the ACT ... shows my age, I guess. I am in college, again ... with a bunch of kids who can not use sentences, structure their paragraphs, or keep from driving their professors insane with impossible grammar/spelling/made-up words; if I hear one more person "ax" a question.... I've been told by english professors that they keep my work aside until they are about to lose their minds. At which point they pull out my assignment and regain some composure from the actual application of grammar, punctuation, and words being used in the correct tense, position, and with correct usage. I am not an English major. I don't much like the classes, but they offer some semblance of ease when everything else I am taking is a hard science. Had one of my hard science professors look at a student for about 15 seconds before she corrected the student with, "I'm sure what you meant to say was, 'May I aaaassss-kk you a question, Professor?'" English is graded in that class; others may need to know what you did in a program in order to change/modify it to suit any changes they may need to make, further down the line. If you can not communicate your thoughts well enough, you will soon find yourself out of a job. If you don't bother to communicate in class, you lose points, so taking the time to make yourself understood will pay off now, and more so further along the line.

/the plagiarism last semester was rampant, and not only in the english courses: students would copy whole processing programs and not bother to change the name in the comments//this semester: one strike policy. Get caught cheating/plagiarizing? You're out. Expelled. Black-listed.///I can't FARKING wait! Do your own damn work.

OhioUGrad:There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

In some countries, like Japan (iirc), high schools have a huge amount of influence on the careers that non-college bound students get after school. They develop relationships with community businesses, and then the businesses hire based on the school's recommendations. The better students get the better jobs. Establishing a better cause-and-effect relationship for students between the work they do in school and the work they do after school would be a really positive step.

Most school systems do have vocational training programs, but it's really hard to get students in them. My school system offered a two-year welding program (among other things) for juniors and seniors. They couldn't keep the class full. But at night, adults were coming into take the course on their own dime. If schools could do a better job funneling kids into good jobs, they would probably take those things more seriously.

OhioUGrad:We need to stop with the "the only way you'll succeed in life is it you go to college" crap that people have been preaching for at least the last 10 years.

There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

Actually trade schools are community colleges. My ex's step dad went to a community college to learn plumbing and heating. they also had car repair tech classes and other stuff that's not a degree. But certification.

I think why we look down on the average line worker and this is my motivation for college was seeing my dad come home from the factory too tired to move and if he had any hobbies he couldn't enjoy them or have much of a social life because he was too tired.

Gyrfalcon:TuteTibiImperes: Gyrfalcon: HotWingAgenda: Most of the people I knew in college were not ready for college. Most of the people I know now, who finished college at least a decade or two ago and moved onto Masters degrees and Juris Doctorates, still aren't ready for college.

When I was in high school, about to head for college, about 10% of all grads were even planning on going to college. That was in 1980. Now, if you figure that another 20% were likely as prepared as I was, but not intending to go, that leaves another two-thirds who were both unprepared and had no plans at all to even try to go to college....just like today.

Which means that after 35 years of insisting that "all kids can go to college," college prep, AP classes, No Child Left Behind, and assorted other well-intentioned efforts to make every single child in America college ready....we've achieved exactly nothing. One-third of students are college material, and two-thirds are unable, unwilling, or uninterested in post-secondary education.

And that should be just fine with everyone. But for some reason, it isn't.

Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

Capable: You should be able to read and comprehend a complex paragraph, summarize what you've read, and write a coherent sentence about what they've read. You should be able to do basic math and simple algebra. You should have a basic grasp of biology and US history and civics. And really, that's about it. Anything MORE than that is what you go to college FOR. To get a more in-depth knowledge of the basic stuff you learned i ...

I'd say that a HS diploma recipient should be able to do a bit more.

A moderate understanding of biology and chemistry, with perhaps the basics of physics, a working knowledge of computer technology, the ability to write a research paper (knowing how to source and cite primary sources is a useful tool for evaluating the quality of writing that you'll come into contact with), thorough understanding of basic mathematics including fractions, division, multiplication, and percentages, basic statistical knowledge, at least a moderate understanding of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry, the ability to dissect a piece of literature and identify themes, symbolism, and literary devices, understanding of US history, at minimum a basic understanding of world history, a thorough understanding of civics and the role and powers of the various branches and offices of the US government, basic economics including an understanding of compound interest, loans, and budgets, and at least a basic understanding of a foreign language.

I'm sure there's more that I'm forgetting, but that isn't an unreasonable about of knowledge to expect anyone to be able to comprehend before they graduate from high school.

I think vo-tech schools are a good idea in theory, but at some level they can also shoehorn kids into a particular path when they're too young to really understand that they want to do. Plenty of kids who go to college don't declare a major until after their freshman year, plenty change after they've declared, and plenty of people end up working in a field different from what they have a degree in. The school district I went through had three general purpose high schools and three vo-tech high schools that they managed, but were funded separately (as the largest district in the state they ended up with the role of running them). Upon checking the website it looks like they've actually added a fourth vo-tech high school since then. The idea of a vocational education isn't dead.

For districts without vo-tech options I could see programs that allow students to work towards an associates degree or apprenticeship while attending a core curriculum in HS.

alice_600:OhioUGrad: We need to stop with the "the only way you'll succeed in life is it you go to college" crap that people have been preaching for at least the last 10 years.

There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

Actually trade schools are community colleges. My ex's step dad went to a community college to learn plumbing and heating. they also had car repair tech classes and other stuff that's not a degree. But certification.

I think why we look down on the average line worker and this is my motivation for college was seeing my dad come home from the factory too tired to move and if he had any hobbies he couldn't enjoy them or have much of a social life because he was too tired.

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich used what I was looking for - vocational schools (the 2 year HS alternative) but even community colleges have been looked down upon until recently with the cost of traditional 4 year schools skyrocketing.

Sudo_Make_Me_A_Sandwich:OhioUGrad: There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

In some countries, like Japan (iirc), high schools have a huge amount of influence on the careers that non-college bound students get after school. They develop relationships with community businesses, and then the businesses hire based on the school's recommendations. The better students get the better jobs. Establishing a better cause-and-effect relationship for students between the work they do in school and the work they do after school would be a really positive step.

Most school systems do have vocational training programs, but it's really hard to get students in them. My school system offered a two-year welding program (among other things) for juniors and seniors. They couldn't keep the class full. But at night, adults were coming into take the course on their own dime. If schools could do a better job funneling kids into good jobs, they would probably take those things more seriously.

Kids are short-sighted, and parents have been brainwashed into the college thing. I agree with you, but the system is being designed to "push" all kids to college, and voced has fallen by the wayside unfortunately. Many districts (mine included) have the goal of making every kid college or career ready. Unfortunately, it seems like college must come before career.

All I know is that more kids than not would be better off doing something else right after high school other than college.

I remember about a year ago, I was in an English class reading a saudi student's report on a movie, doing peer review. It was a movie review. Pulled directly from an online database. Word for word. I'd read this student's work before. He couldn't spell half the words in the article, let alone how well the sentence structure had been crafted. When asked what the movie(5th Element) was about, he started pulling lines from the review. I signaled to the professor. We were both fans of the movie, as it turned out, but the more pressing issue was my utter apathy concerning the student. The conversation went something like this, "Hey Dr. P. Read this."Dr. P. : "Hmm, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling have completely cleared up in two days."Me : "That's what I go from it. Oh, and it is a review. From online. I searched some of the phrases and found where he got it."Dr. P. : "I'd noticed that. This is your peer you are reviewing, are you reporting something to me?"Me : "I'm of a mind to let him hang himself, but then again, I'm being an assh*le. We did read the whole academic dishonesty page at the start of the semester, right?"Dr. P. "Yup. Word for word. Fry him, then?"Me : "No. Just give him 'The Talk' to get the stupid scared out of him. I'm not that much of an arse."

I didn't need to be an arse. Farker decided to hand in the unedited version. The cut-and-pasted version from the web.

Mr. Eugenides:My recent experiences with college freshmen are that 1/3 being unready for college level material is low. It's astounding how first year classes seem to be nothing but remedial high school material.

No joke. My freshman year of college, I took a mandatory course on the history of war and revolution in Western Europe, up to the 19th century. I literally slept through the entire semester - show up every morning at 8am, take a seat, wake up when people around me started moving and talking again. I got a 95/100 overall, and would have felt bad for the lecturer if he had ever bothered assigning any term papers or research projects to make us pay attention. It was just several months of PowerPoint.

Of course, a few years later I took a quantitative decision analysis course that almost kicked my ass, so things evened out.

OhioUGrad:We need to stop with the "the only way you'll succeed in life is it you go to college" crap that people have been preaching for at least the last 10 years.

There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

One other problem is not holding teachers to a higher standard in college, some of the least intelligent, least college ready people I met in college, were education majors. (They were also the ones doing it for the wrong reasons of every weekend, holiday, summer off, and high pay (yes parts of Ohio pay their teachers way more than they should.))

TuteTibiImperes:shtychkn: TuteTibiImperes: Earning a high school diploma should mean that you'd be capable of handling a college education. That doesn't mean that everyone will, or that everyone should, but everyone should be capable. It also doesn't mean that everyone should be able to go to Harvard or MIT, but that on some range between the Ivy League and Community College every high school graduate should have the necessary skills to continue his or her education at the next level if they choose to do so.

School Districts have immense pressure from parents/society to graduate students. Many districts are currently looking that the "unfairness" of the Zero. Going to a system where the lowest grade you can receive is a 50%. Practically making graduating/passing near impossible to not do.

Part of that is also NCLB, which is also part of why a bachelor's degree is now considered the standard level of education for employment whereas a high school diploma used to be - the HS diploma has just been watered down to such a degree that in many cases it doesn't mean much on its own.

One thing NCLB gets flack for, but is actually attempting to make a HS diploma worth something is the requirement to pass a standardized test to receive your diploma. Doesn't matter how easy parents/schools make it to get a "d" in the class. If you can't pass a basic test you cant get a diploma.

The new parcc test will set national standards for what you need to know. Will mean students will actually have to learn to pass. Will be interesting.

stirfrybry:OhioUGrad: We need to stop with the "the only way you'll succeed in life is it you go to college" crap that people have been preaching for at least the last 10 years.

There needs to be a stronger push on trade schools. I've met quite a few people from handymen to plumbers, and heating/ac people who were smart, hardworking, and earned a great living. Not to mention they were probably almost never out of work. But ever since manufacturing jobs moved, this country seems to look down on blue collar workers.

One other problem is not holding teachers to a higher standard in college, some of the least intelligent, least college ready people I met in college, were education majors. (They were also the ones doing it for the wrong reasons of every weekend, holiday, summer off, and high pay (yes parts of Ohio pay their teachers way more than they should.))

Dafatone:It's almost as if teaching test-taking doesn't educate kids as well as educating them does.

Hold on there...isn't the article exactly that they *didn't* pass a test? The problem isn't that they are teaching to a test rather than educating them, but that they aren't even teaching to the test well.

Emposter:In terms of careers, the report found a chasm between what students want to study and where they might find jobs down the road. ACT compared federal Bureau of Labor Statistics projections with their own questionnaires and found insufficient student interest in the five fastest-growing industries with workers who require some college.

"When informed by researchers, students were astonished to find that 75% of jobs in the United States were not devoted to theater arts, philosophy, history, and recreational frisbee golf."

As I recall, something like 70-80% of the jobs being created within the past decade or so don't require a college education at all. Of course, they're blue-collar service jobs no one wants to work...

Mr. Eugenides:My recent experiences with college freshmen are that 1/3 being unready for college level material is low. It's astounding how first year classes seem to be nothing but remedial high school material.

That's because the text books used in many high schools are several lexile grades below the student's actual grade level (i.e., today's high school senior is reading from a text book formally suited for say a high school freshman class).

Gyrfalcon:There is no conceivable reason why, for instance, 8th grade algebra must get kids from adding fractions to quadratic equations in half a year; but that's what they're doing.

Adding fractions is something that's done in elementary school. Quadratic equations come a few years later, and as far as I'm concerned, every 8th grader of reasonable intelligence should be able to handle a quadratic equation.

Not everyone needs to go to college!! If everyone went to college and got a PhD, all that would mean is that a Doctor is picking up your garbage, and a Doctor is snaking your drain, and you get to say "Yes Doctor, I do want fries with that."

Worldwalker:What's really scary is that their definition of "prepared" is from 18 to 23 points out of 36 (depending on section), and the two-third who were supposedly college-ready were the ones who passed only one out of four of those sections; only a quarter of the test-takers managed to accomplish that (very low) goal in all four sections.

Let that sink in:

Three-quarters of students taking the ACT failed at least one of the four sections.

Three quarters.

Three-quarters of the students taking a college admissions test weren't "college ready" in at least one of the four categories they were tested on.

This is not a good thing.

The point of college admission testing is to help rate students for colleges to make a decision. Not every person needs to go to college. There are a lot of kids that probably aren't cut out for college. If only 1/3 are not fit to go I would say that is pretty damn good. I would have expected more like half. The more important question to ask should be, why aren't we identifying these kids sooner and teaching them skilled trades to make them more employable, useful members of society. Just because they aren't good at "book learnin'" doesn't mean they wouldn't make a hell of a plumber or carpenter. Not everyone is cut out for college.